An American Couple Expatriated To London
("It's not my fault! The liquor drunkened me!")

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Continuing Saga Of English As A Second Language

Jammy bastard: One who is undeservedly lucky. For example: "Hey, you just won the $100 million Powerball? You jammy bastard!"

I read it in the Guardian sports section in a heart-warming story (I can't find it online) about two footballers, former teammates and now opponents, one of whom sparked his own team's defeat by scoring an "own goal," the euphemism for when the ball bounces off yourself and into your (wait for it) own goal.

After his unwitting contribution to United's comeback Neville was so downcast that his former teammate Paul Scholes had to coax him from the dressing room to check he was OK. "I said to Scholesy he was a jammy bastard and he thanked me for the goal," said Neville. "We're the best of friends ..."

Moorhen. Frequently mistaken for coots. I was watching some of the male coots in Waterlow Park fight the other morning, and I heard one woman say to another, "Oh, look, the moorhens are fighting." I wondered if moorhen was just another name for coot. Or curmudgeon. It's not.

"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong--faster and faster and faster. They put aside all obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."--Frank Herbert, "Dune"